The Expedition
by Hamtaro23
Summary: Roy Mustang, a university student and Professor Hawkeye's flame alchemy apprentice, finds himself chaperoning Elizabeth Hawkeye, the professor's archaeologist daughter, on a summer expedition to Xerxes. Before long, both the expedition and their lives are interrupted by the outbreak of war. AU.
The more work I have to do, the less work I actually do...So here's something randomly inspired by The Mummy, among other things.

* * *

The steady clicking of heels rings out across Central University's main courtyard. Heads turn. Conversations are abandoned mid-sentence. A football, which had been center of attention of a group of boys moments before, lands with an unceremonious thud on the green lawn. The players watch with mouths open like coin slots as unexpected visitors weave across tree-lined walkways. In a flurry of whispers and bemused giggles, a group of girls disappear, as suddenly as they had come, beneath the alchemy department's ornate archways at the far end of the campus.

An unsuspecting Kain Fuery, toying with the latest version of a prototype radio on his way to class, bumps headlong into Jean Havoc's broad shoulders. "Ah, sorry Jean."

Transfixed by the girls' willowy arms and bobbing curls, Havoc pays no attention to the collision. "Who were they?" He asks, the usual cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth bobs with each word. A small bit of ash lands on his shoe.

Fuery blinks several times and nudges his glasses back into place with the palm of his hand. "Who?"

"The girls, Fuery!" Havoc cries with exasperation, "Tell me you saw them!"

"Oh, yes," Fuery responds nonchalantly with another blink. Sometimes he wonders if Havoc were pursuing a degree in business or chasing women. Either way, Havoc was failing miserably at both, not having shown up to single class or landing a single girlfriend this year. "Must have been Elizabeth Hawkeye and her friends if they went into the alchemy building."

Havoc sighs and takes a long drag of his cigarette. "I should've studied alchemy like Roy. Those alchemists are practically royalty in this place. No girls ever visit our side of campus."

"Business is still a fine career," Fuery reassures his friend, "And I think you'd want a girl who – "

"Wait," Havoc cuts him off, "Did you just say Elizabeth Hawkeye?"

Fuery nods quizzically in response.

"As in Elizabeth Hawkeye, daughter of Professor Berthold Hawkeye, heiress to the Grumman Aeronautics fortune?"

"Yes," Fuery sounds the word hesitantly.

For a second time that day, heads turn and conversations stop in the main courtyard. Havoc devolves into fit of tortured weeping, collapsing on the lawn and beating his fists into the grass. "Curse you, Roy Mustang! Not only is he going to get all the girls but he's going to be filthy rich, too! My life is over Kain. Over! I have nothing left to live for! Nothing!"

"Jean, we should go," Fuery begins. Bending down, he whispers harshly in Havoc's ear, "People are staring at us!"

* * *

Elizabeth Hawkeye is many things to many people. To most men who seek her hand in marriage, she is a ticket to the Grumman's vast fortune. To the Central ladies who gossip over bridge and mahjong, she is just another spoiled young thing spending her family's money on wild expeditions to Xerxes. After all, Elizabeth once heard them whisper at a dinner party, no respectable young woman makes a career of Xerxesian archeology, whatever that is. Of course, their sidelong glances and dinner table whispers only egged her on.

To Roy Mustang, Elizabeth Hawkeye is a loud distraction. The apprentice flame alchemist is on a ladder, trying to tip a large, leather-bound book from its place on the tallest shelf in Professor Hawkeye's office when she – effervescent laughter and bouncing blond curls and all – barges into the room with her friends.

"Excuse me," she declares and gives a stifled giggle when she notices Roy's precarious position atop the wobbly ladder. The haughtiness in her voice is acute, as if she were speaking to a servant. "I'm looking for my father. Would you happen to know where he is?"

As his hand finally catches the full weight of the book, Roy feels his footing give ever so slightly on the ladder. The girls giggle as he tries to maintain his balance, arms flailing wildly at his sides. The ladder groans before pitching Mustang backwards into a pile of papers on the office floor. He catches a glimpse of Elizabeth's dress, a wild shock of red against her father's dusty books and muted research notes, on his way down.

"You seem rather busy," Elizabeth starts, choking back a giggle. "We would hate to inconvenience you," she steals a glance at Roy on the floor – his hair matted against his forehead and a stray piece of paper stuck to one cheek, "any further."

Elizabeth's voice, sweet and clear in mocking mirth, breaks out into full-on laughter in the hallway. Her momentary presence had eclipsed nearly everything on Roy's mind and, after she leaves, he stands in the empty office, holding the book dumbly in both hands having forgotten why he needed it in the first place. Straightening his shirt and peeling the paper from his face, Roy decides he most definitely dislikes Ms. Elizabeth Hawkeye.

* * *

"What was she like?" Jean begs later that evening, cheeks flushed from one too many drinks. "Is she as beautiful as they say she is?"

"Ahh, leave him alone," Hughes slides into the bar booth next to them and slings an arm over his friend's sulking shoulders. "The poor guy didn't even say anything to beautiful, wealthy Ms. Hawkeye." Fuery returns with a couple of beers, and Hughes takes a sip from one before continuing, "But you sure fell hard for her, didn't ya?" He gives Roy a jab in the arm.

"It was an accident," Roy mutters, rubbing the sore spot on the back of his head. "I slipped. That's all."

"Well, let me tell you," Hughes coos, "When I first met Gracia, she was so beautiful that I fell so hard – "

"Right, right. You fell so hard the very earth trembled," Roy finishes for him. Hughes begins digging around his jacket pockets and Roy groans, raising a beer to lips, "Oh, here come the pictures again."

"Look, isn't she just the most delightful woman to have ever walked the face of this planet?" Hughes shakes a thick stack of photographs of Gracia's smiling face at the group. "She's an angel! She's going to move in with me, we're going to married, and we're going to have kids – tons and tons of kids!"

Havoc downs his beer in one, long gulp and slams the empty bottle down on the table. "Everyone's got someone but me! Kain, I'm going to die alone. Sad and alone! My life is meaningless! Meaningless!" Havoc breaks down into tears again on Fuery's shoulder.

"There, there," Fuery gives Havoc's arm a solid pat, "I'm sure you'll, uh, find someone." The bespectacled communications student then adds in a small voice, "Maybe."

"Not if he keeps crying like that, he won't," Roy smirks. "Here, let me out. I'm going to, uh, get some air."

"Roy, don't leave me here with these guys!" Kain calls out, sandwiched between a weeping Havoc and a thoroughly lovesick Hughes, "Roy! Wait! At least bring me back another drink!"

Mustang flashes Fuery an ambiguous grin before getting up from the booth. He cuts through throngs of students and is halfway to the door when he catches sight of a familiar shade of red. Elizabeth Hawkeye is standing at the bar, the slim lines of her calves knotting at her ankles above a pair of matching red heels. He finds himself walking towards her before he knows it, thoughtlessly drawn to her presence.

"Did you find your father, Ms. Hawkeye?"

She jumps slightly at the sound of his voice behind her. Tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ears, she turns to face him and grins when she recognizes his face, "Ah, the clumsy one from before." One slender finger tracing the lip of a cocktail glass, she adds, "I see you survived the fall."

"Yes, but no thanks to you."

"Here to take revenge?"

"No," Roy responds curtly, his dark eyes meeting her amber ones for the first time.

"Are you stalking me then?" She breaks their gaze and takes a sip of her cocktail.

"What?" The look on Roy's face elicits another fit of giggles from Elizabeth. Her blond curls bounce on her shoulders as her body shakes with laughter. "No, I'm not stalking you. I wanted to," Roy's mouth hangs open mid-sentence as he stops himself and looks away, "Excuse me, Ms. Hawkeye."

He sighs with relief when he finally manages to get out of the bar and relishes the sensation of a cool, evening breeze against his flushed cheeks. As he heads back towards to the dormitories along the dirt road connecting Central University's campus and the bar, he curses himself for having bothered to ask her anything.

"Spoiled, immature, juvenile," he mutters under his breath as he stalks back to campus. He tries to make a list of tomorrow's tasks but her laugh – her damn laugh! – and her dress, her amber eyes, everything about her sticks in his mind.

"Did I hurt your feelings?"

Elizabeth's question takes Roy by such surprise he nearly falls again. He stumbles forward two steps before exclaiming, "What?"

"I was only teasing before, you know." She is not sure why she went after him, ditching Rebecca and Maria at the bar for some boy, _again_. But the way he looked at her, she'll tell them later, his eyes resting so fully and completely on her as if the whole world did not exist – she just had to follow him.

"Is that an apology?"

The corners of her lips curl into a broad smile, "If it you want it to be."

"Well, then, apology accepted," he exhales, "Good night, Ms. Hawkeye." And then he breaks out into a brisk walk. He wants desperately to be as far away from her as possible and not at the same time. If anyone sees them alone, together, at night, he is going to catch all sorts of hell from his friends.

"Don't be offended, Mr. Mustang," she says, catching up to his pace.

"How do you know my name?" Roy stops in his tracks, eyes narrowing, "I never told you my name."

Elizabeth brings her hands over her lips.

"I see now," Roy takes several steps towards her, closing the distance between them, "maybe _you're_ the real stalker, Ms. Hawkeye."

"No," she begins, groping for a way to change the subject. "I mean," another pause as she licks her lips, "of course I know the name of my father's top student…" Elizabeth trails off, staring at her feet.

"What do you _really_ want with me, Ms. Hawkeye, or are you just here to laugh at everything I do?"

Elizabeth sighs, twirling a strand of hair around her index finger, "Father wants you to accompany me to Xerxes."

"What?"

"I said," she sighs again, voice agitated, "Father wants you to go with me to Xerxes. On my next expedition. This summer."

"Tell me you're lying," Roy mutters, cupping his face in his hands. "Tell me you're lying." He repeats with a groan.

"Look, Mr. Mustang, with all due respect, I'm not happy with this either," Elizabeth snaps back at him, "But neither of us are in a real position to challenge my father's decision so I think we best learn to live with this," she searches for the right word, " _predicament_."

"Xerxes? In the middle of summer?" Roy groans again, hands never leaving his face as he stumbles back a few paces, "What the hell for?"

"I believe, and father agrees with me, that there is something out there – God, these things are killing me," she lets a small moan of satisfaction as she slips out of her heels and her bare feet settle on the cool, dirt path. Roy tries to suppress the sound from his mind, but the moan tacks itself onto the ever-growing list of things about Elizabeth Hawkeye he could not stop thinking about. "As I was saying," she continues, "there is something out there – The Book of Salamandra – the key to all of Xerxes's long-forgotten fire alchemy."

It is Roy's turn to throw his head back in a fit of laughter. He finally manages, "The Book of Salamandra? That's pure fiction. A fairy tale for children."

"Well, I beg to differ," Elizabeth responds with a huff, "and I – _we_ – are going to find out whether you like it or not, Mr. Mustang." She takes two resolute towards Roy and jabs a finger at his chest, "whether you like it or not."

And, two weeks later, Roy Mustang finds himself sitting across from Elizabeth Hawkeye on an eastward train bound for the ruins of Xerxes.


End file.
